Something True
by Eyesdown104
Summary: Jessica Brody has reached breaking point with regard to her marriage and during a sleepless night ponders the holy trinity of religion, sex and politics. Set during S2, just after episode 3. Contains swearing and sexual content. No copyright claimed, no infringement intended.
1. Chapter 1

Jess lay awake.

She stared into the dark and remembered how when Dana was about four years old, she used to scream at the shadows cast on her bedroom wall at night claiming they were '_dinostars with big teeth_'. She would refuse to go to sleep until Brody went in to her and made a big show of chasing the creatures out of her room. Jess smiled sadly at the memory. The days before everything went crazy.

Now Jess found that she was the one who felt uncertain in the dark. Not because she was imagining monsters but because she felt she couldn't see clearly enough to work out what exactly was making those shapes that loomed on the wall. There was nobody there to tell her things were going to be okay. She used to be so sure of everything, or at least she pretended to be. She had a husband who she loved dearly and who loved her, he was a U.S. Marine and he had been captured while off fighting the good fight. But he was alive and he was coming home to her and the kids, she didn't know when but he was coming home and then everything would be fine. Jess maintained the stance of the devoted, loyal wife, patiently waiting for Brody to come home even though, privately, year by year, her doubts had advanced on her like the shadows on her wall after dusk. She watched them nervously by night but during the day, in public, her resolve stayed strong. Lately, she wasn't as confident that mere daylight was enough to banish those feelings, they seemed to stay with her around the clock.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

She didn't know how they had got to this point. She no longer believed a single word that came out of Brody's mouth. And her daughter was just as bad.

He hadn't come to bed. Just as well. If he crept into their room right now she would have told him get out and stay the hell on the sofa. She didn't even want to look at him at the moment.

He had failed to show up at the veterans' fundraiser that Cynthia had organised tonight. Jess had felt humiliated, exposed and alone. Not for the first time. She had given a good account of herself anyway, truth be told, and the night had been hailed a success, no thanks to Brody. Mike had brought her home. Brody had cited car trouble but she knew there was something else going on. His eyes were wild and he was soaked through. He had no shirt on. His voice was hoarse but he didn't seem as though he had been out drinking. A flat tyre wouldn't shake him up like that. When she questioned him he couldn't toss convincing answers back at her quick enough, he seemed tired. You would think he would at least try to get his story straight before coming home. Perhaps seeing her and Mike on the way into the house together had thrown him. _Well_, _good, _she thought_._

He was lying and she knew it. Turns out he had been lying to her ever since he came home. Creeping off into the garage every chance he got to pray to a god that wasn't his. Disappearing for hours, evenings, weekends. Sleeping with other women. What else was there, how much worse could it get?

Some nights she would watch Brody sleeping, saw his lips twitching, his eyes scanning from side to side under his lids. She wished she could see his dreams, just to know what was going on inside his head. To know him just a little. She wished she understood Arabic so that she could hear what he whispered in his sleep. She stared at the scars on his side where his t-shirt had ridden up. He wouldn't tolerate her scrutiny of his body while he was awake. She wondered what you would need to do to someone to make such terrible marks on them. How much it had hurt him. What he had to do to make it stop. Brody made it clear that she could never ask him these things so she was left to wonder, to use her imagination. That was a torture in itself.

She had waited years for the return of this man, mythicised him, stretched him beyond all that he used to be just through the power of her love, her loyalty and her grief. It was little wonder he couldn't live up to her expectations; eight years of fantasising was a long time. Jess knew it had been unreasonable of her and that the things he had been through were enough to have changed anyone. She understood that and she was willing to be patient, to make allowances. But he needed to meet her half way, he needed to make her understand so that she could help him. She never expected him to be so closed, for him to come back _so alien. _Jess hadn't been prepared for just being with him to feel so strained.

Jess rolled over in order to avert her eyes from the wall; one of the shadows did kind of look like a dinosaur. She found herself staring instead at the place Brody usually slept, imagining the indent he made in the mattress, wondering what else but flesh and bone made up his mass these days.


	2. Chapter 2

Jess recognised that sleep was going to prove impossible tonight. She needed to figure out what to do. If she was going to tell Brody to go, to finally admit to to him, to herself and to everyone else just how bad things had got, she needed to do it having considered it carefully, not in the heat of a fight or out of frustration with his deceit.

The biggest revelation of all had taken place this week. They had skirted around it since, not mentioning it even in passing, but it was there just like the dinosaur gnashing its teeth on the wall. Jess had hoped they'd both just go away.

She had received a call from the Dean at Dana's new school. Cynthia had helped them get scholarships for Dana and Chris and Jess was thrilled at the opportunity for them, another perk of Brody's new job. Dana had acted up over it, unsurprisingly, yelling that her mother was turning into a snob and that she had nothing in common with those privileged kids. Jess wanted her children to _be_ privileged kids, she saw nothing wrong in that. She wanted them to have an advantage that she and Brody never did, especially given the rough start Dana and Chris had experienced. Dana vowed to continue hanging out with her current group of friends from their neighbourhood regardless, in particular with that deadbeat Xander, who was almost permanently stoned from what Jess could tell. Brody sat on the fence and said Dana was old enough to pick her own friends, that she was bright and would soon see the advantages of the new school. Chris had been daunted at first but was settling in, impressed by the school's huge swimming pool, the iPads they used in class and the fact he had been invited to try out for his grade's football team.

So Jess had heeded Brody's advice and bore Dana's campaign of sniping and sarcasm with all the patience she could muster. As long as she only kicked out at home and behaved herself in school and caused no embarrassment Jess could take it. She agreed that Dana would eventually calm down.

But then the Dean told Jess what Dana had been going around saying in morning meeting. She thought she had misheard him for a second.

Jess was mortified, she felt like she was still in school herself, meekly explaining to Mr Carmichael on the end of the line that Dana was going through a phase and had a tendency to say outrageous things just to provoke. She apologised and said she hoped her daughter hadn't caused too much disruption and that she and her father would deal with Dana after school. Her toes curled when Mr Carmichael mentioned that the school offered in-house counselling, if Jess ever felt that this was something her daughter would benefit from. She thanked him, but said she didn't think that would be necessary, she was sure this was just Dana's bizarre idea of a prank. He kept on. Jess agreed that yes, the school was right to value religious diversity but that it certainly was not true and was not funny and assured him once again that she and Brody would take care of it. Jess put the receiver down, her cheeks flushed. _Of all the things to say_. Jess was surprised at Dana, she would never have thought that she would say something as hurtful about her dad, especially given the circumstances. She was clearly trying to sabotage everything, to punish them for moving her to the new school, to scupper the better life she and Brody were working for. Jess was mad as hell.

Jess picked Dana up from school. Chris had basketball practice. Jess made sure that the yelling started once they were well clear of the school gates. She tried to get to the bottom of it. Dana was adamant that the boy in the morning meeting was a racist douchebag, that all of the kids in school were, and if Dana was going to have to attend class with them she certainly was not going to take any of their bullshit. It transpired that Finn Walden had been involved in the arguement too. _Great_. Jess imagined Finn relaying the incident to Cynthia over dinner this evening and her stomach sank. They screamed at each other in the car. Jess gave up. She told Dana that she could try explaining things to her dad instead, see how she liked that. At this Dana grew quiet, suddenly worried. She flew into the house, slammed her bedroom door and didn't come out for dinner. Jess felt impotent but she was looking forward to this being something that she and Brody could unite over, handle together.

When Brody came home, Jess planned for him to speak to Dana in that calm way of his. He would find out exactly what went on. Dana would feel the weight of his taciturn disappointment in her a thousand times more than any impression Jess' yelling could make. But Jess had lost it again. Brody just stood there stunned, opening and closing his mouth like a fish, turning between his wife and child as if he were watching tennis. Jess demanded that Dana explain why she had said such a ludicrous thing. Dana kept looking back at Brody, tearful now, flailing. Brody squirmed. Jess was irritated that he hadn't stepped in but she thought the raised voices might be getting to him the way they sometimes did. But no, there had been something else going on between him and Dana. They were so fucking complicit, the pair of them, it drove her crazy.

And then, there it was. Brody spoke up. _It was true_.

He said he was a Muslim.

Jess' mind bent in so many directions at once she thought her skull would crack. The earth split between her legs and pieces of the Brodys' furniture skittered into the chasm beneath. A chair, a rug, Brody's keys, all swallowed. Jess stood with one foot on the side of the ravine where everything was still fine and the other planted in a world cut adrift, where everything was strange and upside down.

_This wasn't happening._

She looked at Dana. She saw that it _was_ happening. The crack in the floor grew deeper and wider.

How could it be true? How could he have come home from that place the same as one of _them_? _They_ had tortured him for years, nearly killed him on several occasions. Had they beaten Islam into him? Was it like a bad habit he couldn't quit? The whole reason he had gone over there in the first place was to stop _them_. No wonder she felt like she didn't know him anymore, he was a completely different individual to the man she had married. She felt duped. He had stood before her and said he now followed the religion that justified everything he had previously fought against. _He had lost it._ He had to have. She would need to get him psychological help too.

The realisation that her sixteen year old daughter had been in possession of the facts and had been trying to protect her father even while Jess had been screaming at her, threatening her with counsellors, therapy, even _fucking Ritalin, _made her feel like the biggest fool. Apparently, Jess couldn't handle the truth, Jess couldn't be trusted not to go crazy. _Jess was the one with the problem._ Maybe Jess was the one who should pack a bag and leave, maybe they'd be just fine without her.

Brody said that he hadn't told her because he hadn't want to hurt her. _Hurt her?!_ If he cared about sparing her feelings, how the hell did he think she was feeling right then? This was huge and Jess had no idea it was going on under her own roof. Dana had seen it. Had Jess been that determined, that blind in her dogged desire that things were better, that things were on the up, that she had managed to miss the fact that her husband was now a practising Muslim?

How dare he try to rip everything down now, just when the four of them were making progress.

Brody had stood by her side in church several times since he came back and she hadn't perceived even a flicker that things weren't right. They had said grace before meals. He drank alcohol, he ate pork. He let Dana hang out with Xander. She could be excused for missing it; he had hidden it well.

She wasn't sure if she believed him. Even when she found his Quran tucked away in the garage she still didn't truly believe it. But when she threw it on the floor and saw how quickly he retrieved it, as if contact with the floor would make it burst into flames, how mad he got, how he clutched it to his chest like a baby, she saw it for real. Suddenly a veil lifted and she saw a truth about him. Sharp and stark. Finally. Was this what seeing the truth felt like? It pierced her intestines and stained her heart black. She saw him truly for the first time since he returned and he did not like it, he couldn't meet her burning eyes.

While Jess raged about what kind of people Muslims were, how it was incongruous with everything he was meant to be, everything their family was, he just stood there, cowed. He certainly didn't have much to say in defence of his new religion. He seemed to listen when she told him that she would not, _could not_, accept it, that it wasn't possible for him to continue with this madness. He rarely defied her when she gave him an ultimatum, she knew his family meant too much to him. Or at least it had before he became a religious nut with the wrong holy book.

The crack that had started inside the house had chased them into the garage, a dividing line splitting the earth between husband and wife. Jess wished that his Quran had toppled into the crevasse when she had thrown it. But she knew that the book was just a symbol. It was the look in his eyes and the concern he had shown it that really shook her, that betrayed the huge change in him. She was horrified with what he was saying he now was. Internally, she counted the things he now wasn't too. He wasn't the upstanding Marine who had borne the barbarism of those crazy fanatics through his sheer grit and who had come out the other side years later. He wasn't the committed family man who had laid down his gun to serve the public in a different way now, treading the prestigious trajectory to becoming Vice President. He wasn't the guy she had met in school, the one who only ever wanted to make her happy. None of the things she had clung to were true. This made now, the present day, and all those years she had spent waiting for him a lie. She felt cheated.

Jess wondered that if he was now a Muslim, if he now followed the religion that motored atrocities like 9/11, then what else was true? Had he swapped sides entirely? Carrie, that CIA woman he had fucked, had turned up on their lawn frothing at the mouth saying some outrageous things. Maybe they weren't so outrageous. After all, anything was now possible. Had Carrie said it because she had found out the same thing about Brody that Jess had just discovered? Maybe Brody had told _her_ voluntarily. Maybe he had trusted _her_. Maybe he had shared his secret with her like he had with Dana. Jess' blood ran cold at this. In response, Brody had insinuated that Jess was acting as crazy as Carrie was, the disturbed woman fired by the CIA and locked up in an institution for that very incident.

_Crazy_. And that coming from him. She had left him alone in the garage to think on that.

Who the fuck was this man? Was she still right to even call him her husband? He wasn't the man she married and she had thought that this was due to the things that had happened to him. But it now seemed that he was a little more responsible for the transformation than she had realised. Nobody was holding a gun to his head and making him pray to fucking Allah in their garage. Jess had spent months feeling as though it was somehow her fault for not knowing him. Brody had been actively deceiving her. Daily. Constantly.

Jess pushed her hair back off her face. She knew that she couldn't have tried harder. She had made so many sacrifices for him, she waited for years, she had ended things with Mike, pushed him away and buried her feelings as soon as she had found out she had been wrong to move on. She had spent nearly a decade in limbo, seeing that other people pitied her for holding on to the dream that he might come back. She hated being pitied. She was sure that if people could see into her house right now they would pity her all the more. They'd be right to.


	3. Chapter 3

Earlier today they had nearly made love. Or was that yesterday? Jess glanced over at the clock by the bed and saw that, yes, it had technically been yesterday. A genuine moment between them for a change. They had reached an impasse over the crazy Islam thing, and Jess still couldn't bring herself to refer to it in any other way than as a '_thing_', they hadn't discussed it further. He knew how she felt about it. She had made that clear. So the fact that they had wound up in eachother's arms was something of a surprise, running contrary to the way things had been between them over the past couple of days. They had been interrupted by Dana and Xander but it had been a step in the right direction and it had given her hope that they could eventually make it back to having a normal, happy marriage again. Jess had realised that it was still possible, if he was willing.

Brody had caught her reading his speech for the veterans' fundraiser. The fundraiser that he hadn't actually turned up to in the end. He was guest speaker and he had reluctantly agreed to do it. The draft speech she discovered on the kitchen table was heartbreaking. There were things written on that page that her husband had never told her; the way he had felt about coming home, his fears at being reunited with her and the kids after those people had damaged him so. She couldn't believe that it was down there in black and white, all the things he refused to talk about face to face with her. She had wanted to hear those things from him, not just because she wanted to know but because she wanted him to feel like he could tell her. They were supposed to share things, painful or not. She might even have been able to help him with it, but he obviously thought not. She had been waiting in vain for that moment where he would open up to her and they could cry together, where she would tell him it would be alright now that he was home, that she would take care of him. That he was planning on saying it all to a banquet hall full of strangers instead of to Jess hurt her at first but then she realised that he was doing this for her, to make the fundraiser a success, just to please her. Perhaps to make up for the lies and the Islam thing. It would take a lot for him to stand up there and say it, she knew. _Maybe it was easier with strangers_.

That he was making such an effort for her, that his speech wasn't bland and general but raw, personal and true, had really meant something to Jess. He had made it clear that he was doing this begrudgingly but he wasn't going to try to scrape through just going through the motions. He was giving it his best shot, for her and perhaps the veterans. She was touched. Before their recent difficulties Jess really had thought that things had been improving since he became Congressman Brody; the Marine really did seem happier now that he had a mission. She referred to parts of his speech and he clammed up as usual, wouldn't look her in the eye, tried to turn away but she caught him before he could retreat. She thanked him for this gesture, this rare piece of honesty. She kissed him and for once he didn't break away. He was sorry and he was trying, she thought.

These days he never came to her, he never initiated sex, she never felt him nuzzling her neck in the night. He never gave her that conspiratorial look from the sofa that meant he was waiting for the kids to go to bed. She used to be able to give him a hard-on at twenty paces, just by looking at him a certain way. He would never say no. She was the one who used to have to fend him off. Since he came back he would feign sleep, make an excuse, or worst of all, just look terrified and weakly ask her to _please_ _stop_ when she touched him. The fear of feeling him freeze under her fingers got so bad that she hardly ever tried anymore.

If she was determined, then Jess would have to do all the running. And even when she did, she had to force the issue, wind him up like the clockwork toy her mom had given Chris when he was little, wind him up beyond the point where he could still just brush her advances aside. Chris' clockwork toy was a monkey dressed as a soldier and when the key in his back was twisted tight enough, he used to march across the table crashing together the big brass cymbals in his paws. That's what Brody reminded her of these days; he was mechanical. But sex like that was all percussion, no music. Jess needed percussion as much as the next woman but that wasn't what she craved. She wanted intimacy with Brody, she wanted to connect. She didn't want him to do it to her, she wanted to _do it with him_. They never used to have a problem with that.

In the kitchen Jess had thought they were getting somewhere when he grabbed her hand and stopped her, then changed his mind again. He wanted to. She tried to lead him to the bedroom but he threw her up on the kitchen counter in a hurry instead and was suddenly all over her, mauling her. Snare drum, base and that deafening monkey's cymbal, double time. It was going the way it always did since he came back, when they ever made it that far at all. Too hard, too fast and way too impersonal.

Again, maybe it was easier with strangers.

Jess grimaced as she recalled the weekend when he had disappeared with that CIA woman. She had tried to forget it, to forgive him in light of what he had discovered about her and Mike, but it was never too far from the surface. Like a corpse hidden in a lake with rocks in its pockets, weighed down and just out of view. Sooner or later a rock would come loose, some gas given off as the bloated body festered would see it bob up and mar the view. Brody was gone the _entire_ weekend that time. It didn't take a whole weekend to fuck someone to get back at your wife for having strayed when she thought you had been dead for eight years. What had taken that long? On the rare occasion he slept with Jess it had been over in minutes. The fact that he had done it at all hurt her bad enough but the thought that it had been anything other than an opportunist revenge fuck just killed her. It wasn't just that he had slept with Carrie that Jess hated, it was the suspicion that he had enjoyed it, that they had done it more than once, that Carrie hadn't had to cajole him, the possibility that they had maybe even talked or laughed together during that weekend that she absolutely couldn't stand. It was another one of those things he wouldn't talk to Jess about but it didn't fit into the off-bounds 'Iraq' category and she threw it at him every time they fought.

The corpse had stayed submerged yesterday though. She held his head in her hands and asked him to look at her, to focus on her, to slow down. She wanted him to engage with her. It worked. He seemed to remember where he was, who he was with. The fog in his eyes cleared, he returned her gaze, his breathing slowed. His grip on her body softened to a caress. The next time he kissed her, instead of just the drum solo Jess began to hear a tune. It felt sweet and sacred. Like it used to be. She closed her eyes and realised that if she could just have Brody back, then she wouldn't want Mike. Just as they began to lose themselves and find each other, just as Brody threw down abstract lust and embraced the genuine want of his wife, they heard a key in the front door and the spell was broken.

They snapped apart and tried to look casual. Jess buttoned her shirt and Brody stuffed his hands in his pockets to disguise the bunching in his trousers. Dana stood smirking in the hall with Xander. Dana wasn't gloating at having busted her parents; she seemed genuinely pleased that they were getting on so well after this week's fighting. Her baby was growing up, Jess remarked. Jess tried to keep from giggling. Brody made an excuse and practically bolted for the door. She knew that they wouldn't just be able to pick up where they left off once the kids had slunk off again, she would have to start again from scratch another time when the moment was right. But the fact it had happened at all changed things and was finally a glimmer of hope.

How she had gone from that feeling of optimism to not even being able to look at Brody in the space of a few hours reminded her how shaky things remained. But for the first time, Jess felt defiant rather than scared. For a change she felt brave in the dark and wondered if it would last until morning. He had hurt her one too many times. If Brody wanted to toss his marriage away then he could, she would cope. If he wanted to save it then he better start giving her some genuine answers.


	4. Chapter 4

3:28am. Jess was still tossing and turning.

The veterans' fundraiser had been excruciating. Like every nightmare she had ever had about venturing out to collect the kids from school or going to get the groceries and suddenly realising she had forgotten to put any clothes on. But it was real. Mortifying.

The fundraiser had meant such a lot to her. Cynthia had shown a lot of faith in Jess by asking her to do it in the first place. She had felt beyond flattered. The idea that Jess could have something to contribute, that her experience in all of this was valued after all, was extremely gratifying. Jess being part of the team to put on an event to benefit other veterans and their families was kind of like giving thanks for Brody's return, it signalled that they had come through this, risen above the blight on their lives and that they were now in a position to help others. She had so wanted to believe that, even though she recognised privately that they still had a long, long way to go.

Cynthia had been great. The older woman had taken Jess under her wing from the off and she was infinitely grateful. Almost starstruck. Jess would have been at a loss as to how to navigate her way through this without her guidance. These were people Jess saw in newspapers, giving sound-bites on tv. Now Jess was socialising with them, their kids were friends, she had been inside their _magnificent _houses. Jess had become used to being forgotten about, overlooked or dismissed as the crazy war widow who refused to acknowledge that her husband had gone, now suddenly she and Brody were the toast of the town. These people were suddenly interested in _them_. It felt like payback. Jess knew that it really was all about Brody, he was the Congressman, the one that people believed in and appreciated for all he had been through, but Cynthia had made Jess realise that she had an important role to play in all of this too. Jess wasn't just there to prop up her husband and look good on his arm; much more was expected of her and Jess felt a thrill when it dawned on her that she was more than capable. She could do this. She wasn't destined to be just a soccer mom.

Jess had watched Bill and Cynthia Walden from afar, both tonight and on other occasions. They were such elegant dancing partners. They weren't stuck to each other's side, they would work a room independently, at times coming together to share a word or two, a loving glance, then gliding apart to give their attention to someone else. Cynthia seemed as skilled at it as Bill did, her role at a function almost as important as his. They were professionals. Jess realised she wanted this for herself and Brody, to work with him and support him, to be his partner in new senses. She watched as Cynthia drew Bill's attention from across the room and almost imperceptibly flicked her eyes over to a distinguished-looking couple who had just arrived. Jess saw Bill thank his wife subtly and then waltz over to the new arrivals, greeting them loudly as if he had been waiting for them and them alone to show up all night. More than anything, Jess saw that they were just so_ tight_. _That_ was what she wanted with Brody.

Brody, however, had warned Jess more than once. He seemed much less enamoured with their new friends than Jess and on occasion, Jess was sure that she saw a vicious hostility in his eyes at the mere mention of Bill's name. She guessed it was a little different for Brody, in that Bill was technically his boss and that this was all work after all. Brody replied dryly that if Jess thought that she was doing anything other than working for them too, that Cynthia was her friend rather than_ her_ boss, then she was a fool. Jess understood that this was politics but she felt uncomfortable with the level of her husband's cynicism. But he seemed to keep a lid on it when it mattered, so Jess assumed that he was just letting off steam at home.

As the start of the fundraiser drew near, Jess found that she could hardly breathe. Cynthia greeted her, took her arm and told her how fabulous she looked and that everything was going to be fine, everything was under control. Staff were setting the tables, testing the mics and and the lighting. Cynthia handed her a drink to settle her nerves as they went through the running order for the evening. Her new boss sure felt like a good friend.

Jess should have known that something was up when they had her call Brody to arrange for a copy of his speech to be sent over. He sounded a little sketchy even then but he assured her that he had memorised it and changed it a little from the revelations she had seen scrawled on the pad on the kitchen table that morning. She only relaxed because she knew just how good, how arresting, his speech really was. It couldn't fail to go down well, it would hit home with every soldier in the room whether they had been held captive or not. Brody had not returned from Iraq limbless like a lot of his audience had, but his experiences would speak to all of their darkest fears, whether they had been through it too or had ever just contemplated it as an occupational hazard.

But as the guests started to arrive and Brody still hadn't shown up she noted a shift. Cynthia was patting Jess' arm reassuringly one moment to exchanging a concerned glance with Bill the next. Jess wan't meant to see that last part, she knew, but she had and she felt a little of that faith Cynthia had invested in her drain away.

Jess called Brody again. She almost wished she hadn't. He was making little sense to her. At first he had said he would be there, now he wasn't sounding so sure. Something about the middle of nowhere and a flat tyre. There was a strange noise in the background and Brody sounded agitated. Jess got the feeling that he wasn't alone.

Where the fuck was he? _Evening__ prayer_? Surely he wouldn't pull anything now, not tonight of all nights. Who the hell could he be with? Bubbles sprang up on the surface of that serene lake in Jess' mind's eye. Something putrid wrapped in discoloured cloth buoyed upwards, menacing the pondskaters' dance on the film of the water. A hand, pallid and puckered, nails gone to jelly, fingertips and slight webbing between the digits rough and nibbled by fish, threatened to emerge. It hesitated, luminous but blurred, about half a foot away from being witnessed by daylight and oxygen. Jess stopped herself there. She couldn't start thinking like that again, not in front of all these people. She pushed the memory of seeing Brody looking conflicted and guilty, standing on the sidewalk in his pyjamas with that CIA woman, out of her mind. That was the moment she knew there was something between them and she realised that she was the one he had been with that weekend. It had all fallen into place.

_Not_ _tonight_. _He has a flat tyre. He will be here_.

Mike and Lauder strolled in. God, she was glad to see Mike. He looked pleased to see her too, if a little sad at the same time. She showed them to their table and confided in Mike that Brody was running late. Mike agreed with her that he would show up. He also promised her that he wouldn't let Lauder get drunk and ruin her big moment. He squeezed her arm just above the elbow as Lauder looked away but cleared his throat loudly, just to let them know he had seen them.

Jess was passed around by Cynthia and made the acquaintance of scores of people she couldn't have hoped to remember the names of, even on a good day. She smiled and chatted sweetly, all the while with one eye on the door and her hand pressed up against her cell inside her clutch bag, commanding the universe to make it vibrate with a call from her husband telling her that he was on his way. She could feel Mike's eyes on her from across the room too. She knew that he would only have been concerned for her, he only ever meant well, but right now it just felt like one layer of pressure too many. Jess perspired gently and hoped nobody would notice. She did not want to fail at this, she didn't want to let Bill and Cynthia down. It suddenly felt so unfair that she would be judged on her husband's conduct when she had previously been led to believe that this was about Jess doing something for herself. It was still all about him. Her life would always be about him.

As the lights went down, everyone had taken their seats and the first speaker, a veteran confined to a wheelchair, divorced and living in a hostel, took the stage. Jess hardly heard a word of his speech, stomach in knots, fingers trying to shred the table cloth draped in her lap. _Any second now_, she thought, Brody would appear at the door looking frazzled, make his way over to their table, kiss Jess' cheek and raise his eyebrows in a '_phew-that-was-close_' gesture. All would be forgiven. _Any second now_.

Jess was still holding on to that thought, willing it to happen, when she realised that the tail end of applause was waning. The first speaker had finished. Brody was second up. She swallowed hard. Jess could no longer hear anything but her own elevated heartbeat but she looked over to see Bill Walden's lips saying something to the effect of 'what the hell are we going to do now?'. Jess knew that if she had waited another couple of beats, Bill would have risen to the podium and rattled out a general speech to save the day. He was a professional after all and _he_ wouldn't let _his_ wife down. But Jess didn't want that. This was the Brodys' spot. She rose from the table slowly, noting the look of extreme doubt exchanged between Bill and Cynthia. Rather than shake her further, she found that it spurred her on.

She adjusted the microphone and gripped the sides of the podium. Her knuckles paled. She took a deep breath to steady herself. She found Mike's eyes in the crowd. He nodded slow encouragement. He believed in her and she took strength from that. Jess began speaking before she really knew what she was going to say. She faltered a little before she found a natural rhythm and the right volume for her voice. She settled into a train of thought and watched as Cynthia's tense expression softened a little, which reassured her that she wasn't making an altoghether terrible job of it. Jess started to give a version of the account she had seen written in capital letters on Brody's page this morning, but it was the account from her perspective. She spoke of the same things he had written of but of how they had felt for her. Jess experienced the same feeling she'd had that morning, that perhaps what she was saying was a little close to the bone, a little to raw to be spouting on a stage to strangers when she and Brody had hardly addressed these things in private at all. It almost felt like a betrayal saying it all in his absence. If he burst in now she would feel busted. But when she looked up in doubt and saw flickers of recognition in the room of faces, saw Mike's eyes smiling fondly and saw Cynthia look at Bill like they'd struck gold, she felt validated. She held the room in the palm of her hand. It was her story too. _She_ counted. It wasn't her fault that Brody wasn't here to listen. It wasn't her fault that they hadn't been through it all at home together already, god knew she had tried enough times.

Jess returned to her table in a daze. It had gone down well, she could hardly believe it. The applause was loud and heartfelt. Some people rose to their feet as they clapped. Veterans with one arm banged the table. As she approached her seat, Bill clasped her shoulders and planted a firm kiss on her cheek by way of congratulations. Cynthia reached over and squeezed her hand as she sat down. They were proud of her. Damn it, Jess was proud of herself. She had faced it alone and handled it well, just like she had handled the last ten years. There were still a couple more speakers to come and a dinner to get through but Jess just felt sheer relief and the buzz of success, it all passed in a blur. Not even the biting anger she was harbouring towards Brody could ruin this.

After dinner and the closing address, even more people trickled over to Jess, some via Cynthia, to be introduced to her. She seemed to have acquired a number of veteran admirers. Jess noted Mike loitering in the corner, waiting for it all to be over from a distance. She swore he was her guardian angel sometimes. Lauder had readily accepted the invitation of a drink elsewhere from some guys on their table. Cynthia could barely contain her excitement at what a success the night had been. She called Jess 'the darling of the charity circuit' in a conspiratorial tone, arching one expertly sculpted eyebrow. She laid all the credit at Jess' door and babbled about where they could take this next. But Jess had had enough for one night, she declined Cynthia's offer that their driver would take her home, beckoning Mike over and introducing him as a friend of the family. As Bill and Cynthia left, Bill turned to Jess and said "Oh. Be sure to give your husband hell, won't you?". She laughed and nodded, masking her intention to do just that, with bells on. Mike raised his eyebrows apprehensively and led her out to his car.

The night air had exhilirated her. As she glanced across the bonnet when Mike walked across to the driver's side she remembered thinking how good he looked in his uniform.


End file.
